PhPBB isn't RESTful so it has the slash dot bug as a sort of reminder to do this in Scratch or something but without dorking up the costs badly somehow. Dunno. Maybe it's lynx friendly and it's the cost of that. I haven't been looking at the CVE vuln list for w3m lately...
I have a card that, once I ask to see the whole menu in alsamixer (..only iirc it was the default in this edition of Refracta...) offers me Mic boost and External Amplifier (which stops driving things like they're headphones so it doesn't overdrive and get clipped by the amp.) Do you not have such switches available?
Failing that, get into the alsamixer config file and permit yourself a new range; amixer set {mixername}={val} also seems to be a thing; askubuntu mentioned 152 percent as an example ceiling.
Are you sure your netbook doesn't have to take a certain amount of damage to unleash the limit break?